This invention relates generally to beverage containers and, more particularly, to apparatus and methods for transporting and dispensing beverages.
Gourmet coffee shops have gained a large share of the beverage market in recent years. These shops typically sell individual servings of upscale brands of coffee. These servings are usually packaged in single serving cups that are suitable for carryout orders. When such orders are for several people, some of whom may be absent at the time of purchase, several cups (perhaps four or even as many as six) may need to be carried in a cardboard cup-holder.
These gourmet coffee shops so changed the public""s taste for coffee that such coffee increasingly came to be requested as part of a coffee service for large gatherings or groups, such as meetings and the like. As a result of this demand, various beverage transport and service containers were developed and have been widely used in the industry. An example is the container described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,452 B1 (Andrews, Sr. et al.). One particularly useful such container is the package for beverages described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,431 (Geshay) owned by BIB Pak, Inc., Racine, Wis.
One impediment to the serving of gourmet coffee at large gatherings that is not addressed by these other containers, however, is the absence of one that is capable of efficiently transporting and serving more than one type of beverage by itself. In the field of coffee service, when coffee is being prepared for a group of people, it is most often necessary that at least regular and decaffeinated coffees be available. While such demand can be satisfied by utilizing more than one container, this has apparent disadvantages with respect to transport and cost. These problems have persisted despite the high demand for convenient transporting and service of multiple coffees to large groups.
Therefore, an apparatus that would permit one to transport and serve more than one type of beverage at a time, be it coffee or any other type of drink, would be an important advancement in the art.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved beverage package overcoming some of the problems and shortcomings of the prior art.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved beverage package that is capable of transporting more than one beverage in a single container from a point of retail sale of those beverages and of dispensing those beverages in individual servings from the same container.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved beverage package that is easy to fill with two different types of beverage at the point of retail sale.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved beverage package that accepts two different beverages and involves a carton formed of a unitary cardboard blank which is easy to erect for use.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved beverage package that secures fill spouts on beverage bags within the carton and protects the fill spouts from damage during transport.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following descriptions and from the drawings.
This invention is an improvement in beverage packages particularly adapted for the transporting and dispensing of more than one type of beverage.
In this invention, the beverage package includes a carton, a pair of flaccid bags within the carton where each bag has a fill spout secured to a spout-securing panel and a dispensing device secured to a front panel, and a bag-separation panel between the two bags. More specifically, the carton includes the front panel, a rear panel and at least two side panels spaced between the front and rear panels. The top portions of these panels define an upper opening to the carton into which the spout-securing panel is placed. On each of the flaccid beverage bags, the dispensing device is attached to the bottom of the bag and the fill spout is attached to the top of the bag. The dispensing devices of the bags extend through the lower portion of the front panel to secure them to the carton. The fill spouts extend through the spout-securing panel to likewise secure them inside the carton. The bag-separation panel is located inside of the carton and extends down between the two bags to promote the unobstructed filling of each bag. By allowing each bag to fill unobstructed by the other, this panel provides ease in the use of the package at the point of purchase of the beverages being transported.
It is preferred that the bag-separation panel be attached to the front panel and the rear panel, and most preferred that the bag-separation panel have an upper edge abutting the lower surface of the spout-securing panel. This configuration allows the spout-securing panel to be supported by the bag-separation panel when placed inside the carton. The support provided the spout-securing panel in turn enables the beverage bags secured by it to be filled with greater ease and less chance of spilling.
In certain embodiments of this invention, the beverage package also includes a cover panel that extends over the top of the carton and the spout-securing panel inside. In particularly preferred embodiments, such cover panel is contiguous with (i.e., integral with) the upper edge of the front panel of the carton. The cover panel serves to protect the fill spouts from damage during transport.
It is particularly preferred that the upper portion of side panels on each side of the carton have apertures to serve as handle openings for the beverage package, or to allow attachment of handles. These handle openings assist the user in carrying the package by hand. In a most preferred embodiment, latch flaps attached to the sides of the cover panel can be inserted into the handle openings to better secure the cover panel to the top of the carton.
In certain highly preferred embodiments, the front, rear, side, and spout-securing panels are individual parts of a unitary (or single) blank with fold lines that allow it to be erected into the carton of the beverage package. This feature allows for ease in manufacture and storage of the package. Moreover, the part of the blank comprising the spout-securing panel is pre-cut to create a pair of fill apertures for receiving each of the fill spouts when the beverage bags are added to the carton. Likewise, the portion of the blank constituting the front panel is pre-cut to create a pair of dispensing apertures for receiving each of the dispensing devices attached to the bags. It is particularly preferred that the blank further include the bag-separation panel as one of its sections. A more preferred embodiment is one where the blank is formed from corrugated cardboard material.
In certain embodiments, the blank has bottom flaps contiguous with the bottom of each of the front, rear, and side panels. When the blank is later erected into a carton, these flaps are simply folded back in the direction of the interior of the carton. Use of the flaps in this manner reinforces the rigidity of the bottom of the package, giving added stability as it is placed down onto a flat surface where it will rest during beverage dispensing. In preferred embodiments, a bottom panel is attached to one of the bottom flaps to form a bottom to the carton when the blank is erected.
Another preferred embodiment is one where the rear panel portion of the unitary blank is composed of two non-contiguous rear-panel sections. When the carton is erected, one rear-panel section overlaps the other so that the two sections can be adhered to one another to form a completed rear panel. In addition, the spout-securing panel in this embodiment of the blank is composed of two non-contiguous spout-panel sections, each spout-panel section being contiguous with the top edge of a different rear-panel section. Each spout-panel section has one of the pre-cut fill apertures and, when the carton is erected, one spout-panel section overlaps the other so that the two sections can be adhered to one another to form a completed spout-securing panel.
In a more preferred embodiment, the bag-separation panel is part of the unitary blank by being contiguous with one of the rear-panel sectionsxe2x80x94the rear-panel section that has an outer surface overlapped by the inner surface of the other rear-panel section. In other words, the bag-separation panel is contiguous with the rear-panel section which is the inner section.
The unitary blank also preferably includes the cover panel, mentioned above, which (as already noted) creates a protective internal cavity within the carton to prevent disruption or inadvertent opening of the fill spouts during transport or during later handling when the beverages are dispensed.
The unitary corrugated cardboard blank, which is erected easily into a carton for transporting and dispensing two beverages, is further described as having: (1) a first rear-panel section, a first side panel, a front panel, a second side panel, and a second rear-panel section, such sections and panels here recited in their contiguous ordered seriatim relationship; (2) first and second spout-panel sections contiguous with the upper edges of the first and second rear-panel sections, respectively; and (3) a bag-separation panel contiguous with the lateral edge of one of the rear-panel sections. The rear-panel sections, given their placement on the blank, are non-contiguous and (upon erecting) have overlap portions which constitute the areas where one section adheres to the other (i.e., by use of adhesive) to form the rear panel of the carton. The spout-panel sections are non-contiguous and have overlap portions which constitute the areas where one section is adhered to the other to form the spout-securing panel of the carton. Each spout-panel section has a pre-cut fill aperture to accommodate and secure the fill spout of one of the two beverage bags. And, as already noted, the front panel has a pair of pre-cut dispensing apertures to accommodate and secure the dispensing devices on the same two bags.
The unitary blank also preferably has: the cover panel at a location contiguous with the upper edge of the front panel; the bottom flaps at locations contiguous with the bottom edges of the front panel, each of the side panels, and each of the rear-panel sections; and, most preferably, the bottom panel contiguous with the outer edge of the bottom flap which is contiguous with the front panel. Each of the other four bottom flaps is preferably provided with a lock tab and the bottom panel is formed with four slots to accept these tabs. On erecting the carton from the blank, the bottom flaps and bottom panel are folded in the direction of what will be the interior of the carton. This allows the lock tabs to be inserted into respective slots on the bottom panel to form a bottom to the beverage package.
Certain embodiments of this invention involve what is referred to herein as a xe2x80x9cpre-erectedxe2x80x9d two-beverage carton which is a the aforementioned unitary corrugated cardboard blank with certain portions thereof attached, such that later erection of the carton involves minimal steps. More specifically, the two rear-panel sections are adhered to one another and the two spout-panel sections are adhered to one another. In such embodiments, it is most preferred that the two flaccid bags be secured to the pre-erected carton by attachment of the dispensing devices at the bottoms of the two bags through to the lower portion of the front panel of the carton. Moreover, with the carton in such pre-erected condition, the bags are separated from each other by the bag-separation panel within the pre-erected carton. Later, when the pre-erected carton is erected to prepare it for use, the fill spouts at the tops of each of the two bags are attached to their respective spout-panel sections. The pre-erected package is quite flat, which makes it easy to ship and store.
The invention further includes a method for providing two beverages in amounts where it can be consumed by a group of people at their leisure over an extended period of time. The method of this invention begins with the step of providing a unitary non-erected carton that can be used to form an upright carton. The collapsed carton encloses two flaccid bags in horizontally-adjacent side-by-side positions with a bag-separation panel between them. When erected, the carton includes a lateral wall a lower portion of which has dispensing devices of the bags secured thereto. The carton is then erected so as to permit the two bags to be filled with two beverages. The bags are afterwards closed. The filled carton is next transported to the desired location where the beverages contained therein are then selectively dispensed into cups held beneath the dispensing devices.
In certain preferred embodiments of this method, the two flaccid bags have their dispensing devices attached to the bottom of the bags and also have fill spouts which are attached to the top of the bags, the fill spouts being secured to an upper portion of the erected carton. The bags are then filled through their fill spouts, which are also used to close the bags. It is particularly preferred that the erected carton include a cover to be placed on top of the carton so as to enclose the fill spouts within the carton after the bags are filled and the fill spouts closed.
This invention further includes a beverage transporting and dispensing package that includes a unitary collapsed carton which, when erected, has two flaccid beverage bags enclosed in the carton in horizontally-adjacent side-by-side positions, a bag-separation panel between the bags, and a pair of dispensing devices, one on each of the bags, extending through and secured to the lower portion of a lateral wall on the carton. The bag-separation panel, as noted, is preferably integral with other portions of the carton, and it is preferred that there be a fill spout at the top of each beverage bag.
Certain terms used in this document have particular meanings which are set forth as follows:
The term xe2x80x9ccontiguousxe2x80x9d refers to panels, sections or the like of a unitary blank which are adjacent to one another and integrally formed, as when such adjacent parts are created by folding, scoring or the like (e.g., of corrugated cardboard).
The term xe2x80x9cpre-erectedxe2x80x9d refers to a carton in its collapsed (or, more accurately, its not-yet-erected) condition.